I am thinking about the aspect of the meteorological events seperated from the political aspect of "hurting" borders.

What jpowell and others mentioned simply is the advantage of their technology to be able to prevent local problems - may they be political (borders), meteorological (storms etc.), geographical (mountains) or something else.

I mentioned meteorological circumstances to show that the not that acute political aspect isn't needed as an only and solely witness of the DSS and floating ports being advantageous.

There are not a lot of countries that can do anything about objects that high.

I've been thinking that for the past few days, but didn't want to actually say it: Buy a bloody pair of military surplus Phalanx turrets (even a couple of Vulcan cannon will do the trick), strap 'em to the bottom, and tell those annoying little countries to **** off. Nobody can argue with you, because the weapons are purely defensive. You don't even need any more crew, because they're automated.

There are not a lot of countries that can do anything about objects that high.

I've been thinking that for the past few days, but didn't want to actually say it: Buy a bloody pair of military surplus Phalanx turrets (even a couple of Vulcan cannon will do the trick), strap 'em to the bottom, and tell those annoying little countries to **** off. Nobody can argue with you, because the weapons are purely defensive. You don't even need any more crew, because they're automated.

No, I'm not. There's a reason it took the Soviets so many years to shoot down a U2: it's so high that very little short of an ICBM can reach it. The proposed DSS is even higher up. It is a spaceport and upper-atmosphere research station. The concept of forever keeping it outside of the borders of a few nations with megalomaniacal imbeciles for rulers is absurd: the weather will eventually push you somewhere that you don't particularly want to go, and winds couldn't care less about borders.

Tell these people that their property rights extend as far as their military force, and then proceed to ignore them. They'll get over it after a few weeks.

It's true that not many countries [that DSS would need to be concerned about] would be able to reach it to destroy it. Why, then, would your armnaments be purely deffensive? I doubt many others would see it that way. I realize that you're most likely just joking, but you are sounding like a bit of a ... overly militaristic ... stereotype.

No, I think it's fairly important to JP and other space development firms to stay far away from any form of [intentional] weapon.

Idiom:
What is this space treaty? Is it purely fictional, or is something actually hammered out somewhere?

JP,
Alas, it seems as if your dark sky station is not as impervious to attack as your sinister plans likely had counted on. Perhaps the name should be changed from "Dark Sky Station" to "Grey Sky Station", or something less ominous

As far as I understood it DSS can control the effects of the winds upon its course - jpowell said that DSS can avoid to fly above or over countries that don't want that.

The meteorological aspect I have been talking of could be of significant meaning for all launches: If the weather prevents a launch from a special place at the surface carry the vehicle to be launched by Ascender or a similar vehicle to a region where the weather is satisfying after the Ascender is liftes to a low altitude. Then let the Ascender climb to an altitude above the bad weather at the original launch site move back to the coordinates of that launch site and have the DSS at that coordiantes too. After the arrival of the Ascender at DSS move over the vehicle to be launched to DSS and launch it.

As far as I understood it DSS can control the effects of the winds upon its course - jpowell said that DSS can avoid to fly above or over countries that don't want that.

Only insofar as a hot air balloon can: any lighter-than-air vehicle is pretty much at the mercy of the weather. I'm sure that there's some stationkeeping ability (otherwise it'd be next to impossible for the Ascender to dock with it), but it will still eventually end up somewhere that the stationmaster and crew don't want it.

Two points: One is that a Phalanx cannon is a fairly new type of weapon, called a Point Defense Turret. It has no goal in life and practically no capability other than calculating the path of an incoming high-speed anti-ship missile, and placing as many bullets in the air directly in front of said missile as possible. It is not an offensive weapon (unless you're dumb enough to be somewhere within its rather short range). The Phalanx turret is, however, perfectly capable of destroying (vis a visshredding) any object that it is told to that comes within firing range, regardless of where it is launched from.

Please note that I have no interest in creating some sort of floating military base, raining death and destruction down upon the helpless countryside. My point: if some idiot claims that a harmless spaceport can't fly over his little tinpot dictatorship, then he can come and get me. I don't negotiate with ***holes who threaten the use of force that they do not possess.

If you cant keep DSS in one place it is much harder to use. other comanies are claiming thay will be able to "keep it in the box". See www.sanswire.com I also googled "stratellite" and found others.
Sanswire is launching a quarter scale prototype in march.